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Participants of TNC17 student lightning talk challenge

European academic network GÉANT invited students to participate in the students Lightning Talk Challenge in search of future talents to inspire them on their educational journey. As a partner of GÉANT, LITNET nominated two students from Lithuania who are passionate about information technologies. They will be competing against students from other European universities for the opportunity to present their inspiring ideas at TNC17 Lightning Talk session. TNC17 conference will take place in Linz, Austria May 29th – June 2nd, 2017.

One of the nominees Norbertas Kremeris intends to present his idea about OpenFlow protocol based router. His project is implemented using software defined networking. The realization of SDN router acceleration will be implemented using OpenFlow capable switches. The solution is developed based on Sﬂow-RT, OpenFlow ir BIRD routing daemons. This solution increases packet routing efficiency by transferring part of the load to the switch which forwards packets in hardware level with significantly better performance. This way processes of routing and packet forwarding are separated at both software and hardware levels. Processor intensive routing operations are executed on dedicated hardware. Packet forwarding is done by the switch, its performance capabilities enable cost efficient data transfer on high speed (10Gbps and more) interfaces.

The second nominee Mindaugas Zmitrulevičius submitted his idea about personal data protection improvement. He developed a virtual keyboard to protect confidential user data against hardware keyloggers. The second function of his software is denying screenshot taking capabilities. This way hackers cannot take screenshots of every click user makes and cannot disclose confidential information. Also every time virtual keyboard appears in a random position on the screen, making it impossible to track which keys have been pressed mapping them with x and y coordinates. User data is also protected by using a developed algorithm that forges which keys are actually pressed on a virtual keyboard.

Both nominees will take a lightning talk crash course. After the crash course TNC Programme Committee will review all the submitted ideas and will select only the best. Accepted proposals will be notified on April 18th, 2017. Winners of this challenge will have an opportunity to present their innovative ideas in front of an audience of over 650 IT-technologists and members of the global research and education community.